Motivational videos and books are useless.

Motivational books and videos and events do not work after a few days of reading them or seeing them. Why?

We only do things that are either interesting or necessary, if something is interesting to us even if it picking dung we will do it, and if we absolutely abhor something but it is necessary, even if we absolutely hate cleaning the toilet, we do it. That is one law our brain functions on. Another law our brain functions on is it absolutely hates changes and every time we try to change any of our habits it tries to revert back to the usual.

So why do motivational books, talks and videos work only for a few days? Because to implement the teachings in motivational materials, we need to change ourselves (and our brain hates changes) and do some things that are perceived as unnecessary and uninteresting by our brain (if they were perceived as interesting or unnecessary we would have done them already without needing motivation). This goes against the laws our brain operates on, and some motivators may suggest giving yourself a reward for every positive action or change we implement, but many a times we could give ourselves the reward without doing anything (especially for those who use food as a reward) which makes this method questionable.

The above is the core reason why we motivational media do not help us at all. So what do we do then, should we be reconciled with our mediocre selves and not try to improve because it seems impossible? Well I’m sure there are many solutions available with varying efficacy, however, the one that has been consistently shown to have a better effect than most is to change your habits. It sounds simple and straightforward enough but it is definitely not. There is a book that is very famous and best explains habits than almost all other books on the topic, and its name is Atomic Habits by James Clear, just the book mind you, I’m not advertising his books, courses or lectures here, you can try if you wish to, if you don’t wish to spend money to buy the book just download a free pdf version available online (pirated), if there any better books out there do tell. This book explains in detail about habits and I dare guarantee that they have worked for me personally and many more.

I’m sure there are many other methods to bring permanent change to our lives but no one method has ever trumped the method of changing your habits so far, give it a try, you might just find yourself succeeding.